Too Close for Comfort
by Keleshnar
Summary: Spike should have known better than to lend Sam his cell phone. Season 4 spoilers, Jam, Spike/Nat.


"**Too Close for Comfort"  
>Summary<strong>: Spike should have known better than to lend Sam his cell phone. Season 4 spoilers, Jam, Spike/Nat.**  
>Rating<strong>: K+  
><strong>Timeline<strong>: Set between "The Better Man" and "A Day in the Life." Spoilers for Season 4.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I own neither Flashpoint nor the characters, only my silly situations.  
><strong>Author's note<strong>: This fic is my take on how some events would unfold after certain scenes in "Run, Jaime, Run" and "The Better Man." Parts of it have already been contradicted by subsequent episodes, but we can ignore that for now, right? I wrote this story with a lighter tone than my typical stuff, hopefully you still like it. Also… like "Jam," what do we call the Spike/Nat pairing? "SpNat"? Thanks to the chowhound and blogto websites and their users for giving me opinions to read on a food I'd never heard of before. Man, I've learned a surprising amount about Toronto researching for fics.

Ch1: Revelations

It was innocent to begin with. Sam and Raf, who had hung around after a meeting until Team One started to arrive for their shift, had somehow started talking about the best veal sandwich in town. Apparently, Raf had never been to Mustachio.

"I can't believe that you've lived in Toronto for your whole life and never even _tried _Mustachio! You're missing out, buddy – their veal and eggplant sandwich is the best in town, bar none."

"Wait, Sam, I thought we were talking about _veal_ sandwiches," Raf joked. "I mean, why add eggplant unless the veal can't compare? Have _you _ever tried California Sandwichs?"

"Blasphemy, Raf!" Spike chimed in from Winnie's desk, where he had been chatting with her. "You want to join Team One, you gotta start thinking like us!"

Sam's face lit up with an idea, and he motioned for Raf to wait in the workout room while he approached Spike.

"So we all agree these are Italian sandwiches, right?" He called back. "So let's ask an _Italian_ in order to get an honest opinion! Hey Spike, can I borrow your phone for a sec?"

"Sure no problem," he smirked as he pulled it out of his coat pocket and tossed it to his teammate.

Shaking his head at Sam from the other room, Raf watched Sam catch the phone and begin to search through the contacts list. When Sarge called his name from the debriefing room, though, he had to cut the party short. "Guys, I gotta go, but we will continue this later," he finished with a put-on tone of seriousness. Spike chuckled, but he paused when he saw Sam's face freeze. What was going on?

Spike's question was answered when Sam, his expression changing from quizzical to suspicious, turned the phone around so Spike could see it. That small, damnable screen showed the letters "mus" in the search bar, and the results started with "Mustachio" and continued alphabetically with "Myrna Loeber" as well as… "Natalie Braddock."

"Spike?" Sam questioned, "Why is my sister in your phone?"

_Shit, why did I have to add her last name?_ He asked himself as he tried to put on a mask of innocence – in part to hide the fear that Sam's tone had inspired. Sam's attitude was suddenly quite intimidating.

"Spike?" Sam reiterated, taking a step forward.

"Um… she called me?" that was the truth, after all. But it hadn't quite stopped at just a call, either.

"What do you mean, 'she called you?'" another step forward, and Spike started to worry. Would Sam hit him over something like this? He really wasn't sure.

"She, uh, she just called to say hey." Winnie was watching from the desk with an air of excitedly getting the newest gossip, but at Spike's panicked side-glance in her direction she turned back to her computer and pretended to be busy. Apparently she didn't want to get involved with Sam in protection mode, either.

"Spike, are you seeing my sister?" Sam's tone somehow got lower and more predatory even as he intoned the question. Spike felt like prey, too; the army veteran using his name like a homing beacon with every question and every step. He tried to inconspicuously step back, but his foot bumped into the desk. Trapped.

As a call came through her headset, Winnie answered, "SRU" and shoed them away from her desk with her hand so she could hear clearly. Great, now they were being corralled into the hallway in front of the locker rooms, for a more private beating.

"You're dating my sister?" Sam reiterated, close enough now that when he learned forward he was intruding into the other man's personal space. It was personal, all right, but Spike didn't understand what the big problem was. They were both adults.

_Wait a second…_ the logic switch in Spike's brain won out over the panic. Sam couldn't hit him, because Team One was already on probation and had to be perfect on the job. Spike was just having a normal, consensual, _allowed_, adult relationship with another adult, which was more than he could say for…

"Well, you're dating Jules!" the accusation spilled out right as the door to the women's locker room opened and Jules herself stepped out.

Hearing nothing but Spike's dangerous statement and seeing the two men's aggressive stances, Jules eyes widened and she immediately jumped between them with a calming, "woahh…" as she gently pushed them apart. Now Spike was raring to go, too, and the looks in their eyes indicated lots of simmering testosterone.

So she dragged them by their shirtsleeves into her locker room, hoping to contain the situation. "What's going on?" she demanded, looking back and forth between them.

_Say it, buddy, just say it_, Spike thought, almost taunting Sam into starting the whole argument over again with a subtle shake of his head.

Sam's temper obliged. "Spike is seeing Natalie," he said, blue eyes never leaving the steady brown ones of Constable Scarlatti.

After his initial deer-in-the-headlights reaction, the rational side of his brain had returned and locked on to the facts. Spike knew he had the upper hand.

"Well last I checked that wasn't against regulation. Unlike dating a team member, which specifically _is_." He turned to stare at Jules as he emphasized that last syllable. Sam and Jules realized that Spike was officially confronting them _in HQ_ about breaking Team One's probation. It was as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped over them. Sam's stance and near-glare softened, and Jules's body language shifted from negotiating a fight to defensive mode. There was worry in her eyes.

"Natalie told you?" She asked rhetorically. They had been so careful around the team, it had to have been her.

"Yeah, she accidentally let it slip last week," he nodded.

Sam turned incredulously to Jules: "Wait, you _knew _about them?"

At that moment Winnie's voice came over the HQ loudspeakers with the all-too-familiar "Team One, hot call!" alert, but the three officers pretended as if nothing had been heard.

With a shrug, Jules replied, "I suspected."

"Hold on - " Spike interjected before Sam could berate Jules for not voicing her suspicions to him. "Forget Natalie and me for a sec'. The problem here is that you two are seriously violating our probation terms," He paused for a moment to let that reminder sink in. "You have been for _months_. You know what will happen to Team One, right? I've been keeping this a secret for you only because I didn't know how to react. Still don't."

Jules would now have categorized the situation as deescalated from red to yellow. The change was visible; all three of them had slowly moved away from each other during the conversation, and they were now standing in a wide triangle in front of the sinks.

"I wish you hadn't put me in this position. Put _the team_ in this position." Spike sighed, "I hope you guys really love each other, for all this."

Having not been able to find half of his team during the first thirty seconds of a hot call, Greg pushed open the door of the women's locker room with slightly more force than necessary and entered, followed closely by Ed. Three sets of eyes turned toward their Sargeant and Team Leader, any and all replies dying on Jules's and Sam's lips.

"Guys, there a problem?" Greg asked, pausing when he saw the tense body language and wary glances between his officers. "We've, uh, got a hot call," he motioned out toward the hallway with his thumb.

"I don't know, Sam, is there a problem?" Spike asked flatly, his gaze never leaving Sam's.

_Is Spike _threatening_ me?_ Sam thought, his pride riling up again. Fortunately, Jules stepped in before he could formulate any sort of reaction.

"No, no problem, Boss. We're coming. _Now._" That last bit was said with pointed glances to the two youngest men in the room.

"Good," Sargeant Parker replied, turning on his heel to leave as an example of getting their asses out there and doing their jobs.

Ed stayed a moment longer to survey the situation, his three charges slowly recollecting themselves. With an expression of _What the hell are you doing?_ and his thumbs hooked through the shoulder straps of his vest, he suggested, "Gear up?" before following Greg out to the rigs. Whatever it was that was going on in the locker room, he thought, they'd better not bring it with them on this call.

_To be continued…_


End file.
